Well well well, Athens has come and gone. Unfortunately I didn't have the same performance as last year. Friday evening comes, and Stefan and I head down to Athens. After a long windy trip down to Athens, Stefan and I finally get to Athens around 11 pm or 12 am. Saturday comes and I am doing the amateur races. With these races, there are qualifier races in the morning, then finals races in the evening, with the big pro races at night. So first up is the cat 1/2 qualifier race.
Leading into the race, I start riding around with Stefan (Stefan is doing the pro race that night and just spinning his legs out.) I get a good warm up in, about 45 minutes. The race starts and I immediately find out that my legs are still very fatigued. As the race goes on, I have no acceleration. I cannot follow any attacks. The race had constant surges. Every other lap on the back stretch, the group would bunch together. What this means is it is so easy to loose field position. All luck. One lap I would be in the top 5 wheels, the next lap, I would be second to last wheel. About half way through the race, I thought it's going to be really hard to qualify. With my legs not feeling 100% and everything going down to luck, I didn't feel to good about my chances. The last lap comes, and I move up. I get on Tim Henrys wheel and stay on it all the way to the finish. I end up sprinting to 7th place. OK not so bad.
The finals race comes and it is only 20 laps. The field is stacked with some strong masters racers. The starts and I immediately start getting mad. The whole thing with the finals race is anyone the qualifies races, meaning juniors, cat 4s, cat 3's, and masters. Which means is a sketchy race. The race starts and true to form, I feel bad. I can't really respond to attacks all I can do is sit in. The whole race, I am sticking around the front, staying well positioned. With 2 laps to go, There is a wreck that I get caught behind and I can't close the gaps to get back to where I was. Not quite the same luck as the morning race.
Roswell criterium is the next day, and this time, I am doing the Pro race. The reason why I didn't do the Pro Athens races is because I didn't register in time. This time, I am in the pro race. I get a mediocre starting spot, just to have it taken away by a horrible clip in. It probably took me 3 tries to get clipped in. My guess is nerves on that one. This was my first NRC pro race (national caliber field I.E. best of the best) so I was a little tense. The race is a crash fest. I get caught behind one crash, unclip, stay up right, then got a free lap. So I'm back in the race, holding on for dear life. The race continues. 30 minutes pass and I am sitting mid pack. The guy in front of me clips a wheel and goes into the barriers, taking me with him. My 1st crash of 2011. I flip over my bike and land on the inflatable barrier. Then my good friend Alex runs into my head. That didn't feel so good, but I am still able to ride. So I go to the pits. My front wheel is trashed and my front brake pads are completely shot. After the neutral service guys pt new brake pads in and change my front wheel, I get back into the race. 2 laps after that, ther is a massive pile up that spanned the entire road. I was not apart of this crash, but I was still caught behind it (along with 75 other guys.) So once this giant rush of people show up to the pits, the officials stop the race. And restart it. Kind of like a red flag in Nascar. We restart with 30 minutes left. After about 10 minutes, I get a 2nd wind. I start moving up and I feel great. Every strait away, I move up 5 spots, which is quite a task when the entire race is single file. I FEEL GREAT at this point. With 5 laps to go on the 1st turn, a guy goes down and I narrowly avoid the wreck. I loss all the field position that I had gained. I just sit in the rest of the race and give up on moving to the front. I strongly feel that if I had not been caught behind that last crash, I could have gotten a top 25 result. But o well, that is life. At least I was not badly hurt.
That wreck looked a lot worse than what it felt. I am hardly banged up and very blessed I am not hurt at all. I don't even have road rash or anything.
So now that that is over with, I am deciding which races I want to do next. I will be racing within the next 2 weeks, but not sure which races they will be. But once I figure that out, I will be sure to let you guys know.
Til Next Time,
The Crow
